Vermeer. The Complete Works (Bibliotheca Universalis)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Individual Artists
Vermeer. The Complete Works (Bibliotheca Universalis) Details
Review “It is a beautiful volume―my art book of the year!” Read more About the Author After completing his studies of art history and archaeology at the University of Vienna, Karl Schütz joined the staff of the Gemäldegalerie of the city’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, serving from 1972 as a curator and from 1990 to 2011 as its director. His particular scholarly interests include Netherlandish and Flemish painting, early-16th-century German painting, courtly portraiture, and the history of the Gemäldegalerie collection. Read more
Reviews
Not an easy read if you are as ignorant of the language of art criticism as I am, but well worth sticking with for the quality of Gowing's observations of particular paintings and for the generally plausible discussion that he derives therefrom about Vermeer's psychological make-up and about the ways in which he appropriates and recasts the genre work of the Dutch artists of his time. At the heart of the book is an implicit thesis about style and character that might seem a bit of stretch -- and might be in fact a bit of a stretch -- but is underpinned by the quality of attention to detail that Gowing brings to the work itself. It's a book I feel I need to read again to come more fully to terms with, but that seems worth doing. Two complaints -- I would like more color plates, And I got irritated by Gowing's identifying paintings by the city in which they're exhibited (Dublin, New York, Amsterdam, etc.) instead of by name. Gowing is a painter himself, but he writes carefully and well, even if one feels that he's writing for people who know as much as he does. The regular art-tourist who wants to take a selfie with the "View of Delft" will find this hard going.
